Riverdale’s time jump between the yet-to-be-finished season 4 and upcoming season 5 will be seven years. Production for the show’s fourth season was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. Filming will resume in the next few weeks to finish the season’s final episodes and continue into filming season 5.
The series resuming production is good news for Riverdale’s dedicated fan base, which has stayed loyal to the show through increasingly dramatic plotlines since the first season premiered in January of 2017. Riverdale’s ensemble cast of rapidly-rising young stars – which includes Cole Sprouse, Lili Reinhart, Madelaine Petsch, Camila Mendes, and KJ Apa – is a large part of why the series has continued amassing such a passionate following. The post-season 4 time-jump has been discussed previously in vague terms by showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and will see the beloved cast launched through college and into their mid-twenties.
In an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Reinhart discussed the upcoming resumption of filming for the show and confirmed that the time jump would cover a seven-year period. Reinhart said that she’s excited for the shift in age for her character and the rest of the cast, and that’s she’s looking forward to the new opportunities the jump will open up for Riverdale’s story.
“Season five, we’re actually doing a, I believe, seven year time jump into the future. So we’re not going to be teenagers anymore…I’m psyched about it. I’m really psyched about it. I think it will be nice to play an adult. But I also really appreciate that Roberto, our showrunner, was like, ‘Yeah, let’s, like, revamp.’ We’re not just stuck in high school for seven seasons.”
While Riverdale began as a relatively grounded small-town murder mystery, the show has continued to elevate its stakes and storylines drastically with each season, with arcs ranging from gang wars and cult communities to undercover federal investigations, drug rings, prison fight clubs, vigilantes, and serial killers, just to name a few. This often absurd escalation has been both celebrated and criticized. The seven-year time jump could give the series a chance to reset with some more grounded plotlines. Still, at this point, it seems just as likely that pushing the cast into adulthood will only open up more opportunities for a continued stream of bizarre, stylish drama.
The jump also opens doors for significant shifts in the show’s various relationship plotlines, which have been a critical point of focus for fans since Riverdale began. The drama was brewing once again between Betty and Archie when season 4 was abruptly cut off, while Jughead was still pursuing his writing career. With the show’s title mirroring that of the town, it’s assumed that season 5 will see the core crew returning home. But whether they’ll be coming back together or alone remains to be seen.